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Eurozone’s Next Chapter: Why Expansion Won’t Be Easy After Bulgaria

  The European Union’s long‑running project to expand the eurozone has reached a pivotal moment. With Bulgaria preparing to adopt the euro, attention is shifting to the remaining EU states still outside the common currency—and the road ahead looks far more complicated. Bulgaria’s entry is significant: it demonstrates that euro adoption is still possible for countries willing to meet the strict fiscal and legal criteria. Yet the remaining holdouts—such as Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechia, and Sweden—face a mix of political hesitation, economic challenges, and public skepticism that make near‑term expansion unlikely. Some governments argue that adopting the euro would limit their monetary flexibility, especially in a period marked by inflation and geopolitical uncertainty. Others face structural economic gaps that make meeting the convergence criteria difficult. In several countries, public opinion remains divided or outright opposed, slowing political momentum. The EU continues...
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Wall Street Slips to Start 2024 and Gives Back Some of Last Year’s Big Gains

 


The stock market started the year on a negative note, with Wall Street slipping and giving back some of last year’s big gains.

Futures for the S&P 500 lost 0.8% before the bell on the first trading day of 2024, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.7%. The S&P 500 slipped 13.52 points, or 0.3%, to 4,769.83. The benchmark index still posted a rare ninth consecutive week of gains and is just 0.6% shy of an all-time high set in January of 2022.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20.56 points, or 0.1%, to 37,689.54 after setting a record Thursday. The Nasdaq slipped 83.78 points, or 0.6%, to 15,011.35, but that was barely a blemish on an annual gain of more than 43%, its best performance since 2020.


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